Its raining daffs, halleluja!
As any commercial florist will tell you, flower arranging is the easy bit – at the end of the day its all about logistics. This was no less true for me and our trusty flower deliverer Adekunle, field supervisor at care agency KTs Angels, who I’d arranged to meet at the Brent Mencap garden on Friday to hand over flowers for three vulnerable disabled residents in Willesden and Cricklewood.
Just a couple of minutes after leaving my home the heavens opened, pelting me and my precious cargo of daffodils, mahonia and hyacinths with gargantuan sized hale stones propelled by gusts of gale force winds, or so it felt like. Battling my way down Willesden High Road, I mentally rehearsed how I was going to explain to Inez, Ade’s manager, how it was that the flowers had ended up in the gulley. Nothing to do with me unwisely deciding to carry them in an open box to show them off to admiring passers by, of course :))
By some miracle, I managed to make my way to the allotted meeting point, only to be faced with the challenge of how Ade was going to protect the flowers while taking them to his clients on public transport. Off I ran in the sleet, up the road to B&M to buy a large reuseable bag to fit them in and back again to Ade, who was lovingly huddled over his charges in the Mencap entrance.
Back home over a calming cup of camomile tea, I trembled to think of the trouble I’d have been in had I’d had to tell Gill and Beth at Harlesden Town Garden that the lovely flowers donated by the garden were lost in an ill-judged attempt at impromtu Flower Friends promotion.
Lesson learnt!